Hasta La Gadget!

For a company with as rich of a reputation for landscape QWERTY sliders as HTC has, you’d think they’d be tripping over themselves to release a truly high-end Android phone with a keyboard, but not so much — the closest they’ve come so far would be the midrange myTouch 3G Slide, and that puppy ain’t even out yet. We broke the news last night about three seemingly new names for upcoming HTC devices — Vision, LED, and Glacier — and Dutch site Tweakers.net is now reporting on a user agent profile for the Vision that lists the device featuring that mythical holy trinity: WVGA display, QWERTY, and Android. Furthermore, they’ve got the director of HTC Benelux on record saying that they’re planning more Android phones with keyboards — so that’s a Good Thing to hear at a time when huge slates seem to be stealing the show in every segment of the market. With the Nexus One, Desire, Droid Incredible, and EVO 4G all alive and well, we think these guys would be well-served to play with other form factors for a minute or two, yeah?

HTC ‘Vision’ finally bringing high-end QWERTY to Android? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 May 2010 14:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is totally out of the blue, but we were just hit up with a screen shot suggesting that T-Mobile USA will be launching a portrait QWERTY handset from Nokia on June 16 known as the E73 ‘Mode.’ As is evidenced with the Nuron, T-Mobile has a tendency to assign trademarkable names to Nokias in its lineup that are known elsewhere in the world by their model number only, so we imagine that this phone will end up launching globally simply as the E73 as it takes over the E72’s throne as Espoo’s top productivity beast. More on this as we get it, but in the meantime, check out a bigger shot of the phone after the break.

[Thanks, Spenny]

Continue reading Nokia E73 ‘Mode’ coming to T-Mobile next month?

Nokia E73 ‘Mode’ coming to T-Mobile next month? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 May 2010 14:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve still got thousands of unanswered questions (well, maybe not thousands, but definitely dozens) about RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 6 platform — and it’s starting to look like we might be answering those questions at retail by way of this Bold 9800 slider that’s been making the rounds lately. BGR claims that the handset is lining up for a mid- to late-June release on AT&T, with the carrier having placed a substantial million-plus unit order to lock it up as an exclusive for some undetermined length of time (much as Verizon has managed to do both with the Storm and the Storm2). We hate to point out the obvious, but from a PR perspective, June’s not the best month to be announcing and / or releasing anything that isn’t an iPhone — and when you look at the 9800’s form factor and the baby steps that BlackBerry 6 seems to make toward boosting consumer appeal, we don’t think you can make an argument that this is a sufficiently different market segment the same way you could with, say, the 9700. In other words: we wouldn’t be shocked to see this date slip a bit, assuming the rumor pans out.

BlackBerry Bold 9800 slider coming next month as an AT&T exclusive? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 May 2010 13:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, CLIQ, better check that rear-view mirror, because you’ve got an interesting competitor coming right up on your tail. T-Mobile is launching another midrange Android QWERTY slider — some might argue the G1’s true successor — christened the myTouch 3G Slide (not quite the “myTouch Slide” we’ve been hearing for a few months) with a 3.4-inch HVGA display, 5 megapixel camera, and a pretty heavily-customized skin based on Android 2.1. How custom are we talking, exactly? Well, it’s not quite like anything we’ve seen on a production Android device before, featuring a host of custom apps including the “Faves Gallery,” a social aggregator for your most dearly beloved contacts; “myModes,” a profile manager that can change the phone’s themes and settings based on time or location; the Swype keyboard in place of Google’s option; and the so-called “Genius Button,” which seeks to extend Android’s already decent voice command and text-to-speech systems by allowing you to do just about anything on the phone using your voice, hear messages read back to you, and so on. In the myTouch 3G tradition, the Slide will come in a selection of colors when it launches in June — black, white, or red — for a to-be-announced price. Check out T-Mobile’s full press release along with our impressions of the device after the break

Continue reading T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide official: Android 2.1, QWERTY, coming in June (we go hands-on)

T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide official: Android 2.1, QWERTY, coming in June (we go hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 May 2010 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just gaze upon those curves up above and tell us what they remind you of. Yes indeed, the Nokia N98 — which seemed so futuristic we were inclined to dismiss it as the product of a hyperactive imagination — is today looking all too credible thanks to the obvious design similarities it shares with the officially released N8. Starting with the distinctive tapered edges with contrast coloring, moving through the black bezel-sporting display, and jotting down to the positions of the Nokia and N00 logos as well as the Options menu, the viewer can’t help but be convinced that this February leak came with no small portion of truthiness to it. Now, we don’t live anywhere near Espoo, so we can’t tell you whether this was just a precursor to the N8, which lost its physical keyboard and N9x naming scheme to become the beastly media phone we know today. But wouldn’t it be lovely to believe Nokia’s working on all cylinders and planning to introduce a 4-inch QWERTY variant of its new flagship?

Nokia N98 leak validated by N8, is there a QWERTY slider brewing up in Espoo? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 May 2010 04:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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